


One's Own Funeral

by TheCelest



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I checked, I woke up at 1 just to be free from my own brain, It takes 6 minutes to read, Please reward my suffering with 6 minutes of your time, The red bull was 2 dollars, Tim Drake Deserves Better, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 04:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCelest/pseuds/TheCelest
Summary: Not a lot of people can say that they've grieved over their own death (or at least, metaphorically.), and yet, Tim could vividly recall the night he did just that. In perfect clarity.





	One's Own Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, this fic-or rather, a pathetic group of paragraphs-is literally 1000 words+ and is short af but I do hope it's worth the 6 minutes you yeeted at poor ol' me. Take note that this was all written at around midnight (and I was high on caffeine) and that I literally bullied myself to publishing this so don't get your hopes high, my dudes/dudettes. 
> 
> (Btw, that teen and up rating was only for cursing, nothing dangerous.)

A metallic taste called for his attention, followed by a sudden sting of pain, but he paid it no heed. He could have punched his arm through a wall and all the care in the world would stray from him. Nothing mattered when all you had to define you is ripped away. A gaping wound left in its wake. Nothing mattered anymore. Not to Tim. Not now. 

The winds caught on nothing. Free to fly past Tim for once, no cape to hinder its path. And Tim suddenly felt nostalgic for its familiar whip. Robin's cape. His cape. And he was forcibly thrust back to his stream of thought. Messy and in a rare state of disorder, a flurry of upsetting scenarios repeated throughout the past hours.

Ugly emotions stirred within him all the while Gotham went on its usual, 'merry' way, not a single thing differed from its regular routine on the streets below. Tim had noticed that the fact made him a little more upset. For no one will mourn tonight. Just him, alone on the top of the godforsaken city. Or maybe someone _will_ mourn, and he was all the madder that he couldn't be there to stop that.

Just the thought of Gotham and how sadly common its tragedies were pushed Tim into deeper woes, previously untouched troubles flickering into existence. Robin is absent tonight, and Tim couldn't fathom the feeling that sparked whenever he imagined a life or two lost at nights where he could not don the cape- or the rest of his uniform. But Tim could only sigh, letting go in a wisp of air. If only it lasted longer. For, as stated, nothing mattered; attempts to compose himself, obsolete. And it all quickly rushed back, forming into a sour lump in his throat.

Tim had escaped to the city mere hours ago, a few moments before sundown, in a state of obvious shock. It wasn't often he left the Manor in casual clothes and even rarer so, fuming. Tim had taken a bus for the longer journey but easily walked the rest of the distance to his destination. A lonely rooftop garden snugly settled on a lesser-known apartment somewhere farther away from the louder parts of Gotham. It wasn't a real garden per se, just a few pots sporting huge-fronded succulents neatly arranged on the edge of the roof, but it was quiet. And the gods know Tim needed just a little more of that to even make heads or tails of his disastrous predicament.

The moon was high up now, allowing the stars to shine in all its splendor. Only if. The extent of Gotham's filth reached even the skies. Leaving oceans of grey to hide the otherwise gorgeous sky. Tim was staring skywards now, unaware of the time. He didn't count the seconds, only the mindless curses and exaggerated facts he managed to catch in the storm that was his head.

The moon had treaded miles along the sky when, unexpectedly, all of his thoughts ceased. The low whispers of bitterness and hate backing down into dark silence. It could've been just a hopeful - and selfish - idea that decided to hop into his mind, but Tim could've sworn that even Gotham itself laid quiet for just a brief moment.

In the absence of thought and sound, a lone voice sprang out, like a dagger piercing through the poor boy's heart, drawing blood. Grayson's voice. Grating, rough, and unbearable. A drastic contrast to how Tim remembered it.

"Equals?" He whispered, notes of disbelief dotting the unheard rhetoric. And Dick’s pleas replayed in memory. Tim found it ludicrous, nearly laughable. But instead, red flashed behind his eyes. Suns of anger in a black night.

Tim truly made an effort to cage his rising anger, but that painful, _painful_ voice roared silently in his ears and he could _hear_ the ropes and bars of his patience snapping in two. "What kind of-", he paused, trying to hold his composure, but something had thrown the rest of it out by force, "what kind of bullshit excuse is that?" And though his cries reached no one, Tim winced at his own reckless voice. No longer constrained.

In truth, he deserved every right to be angry. To feel fury thud in every beat of his tired and _human_ heart. But on the other hand, Tim scolded himself like one would a misbehaving child. 'I'm being selfish, I'm being stupid," he reasoned.

A word: reason. Is that not what he's mastered over the years? Why does it fall apart now? Why is the mind so fragile in the face of dire need? Perhaps because Tim was no longer thinking with his head. But some beating curse buried in his chest by whatever or whoever was cruel enough to give humans hearts.

Funny how it all falls apart so quickly. And so, so suddenly too. Years of training. Years of staying up past the moon, the need for justice a fuel for his determination. Years upon years of grueling hours of training that demanded his blood, sweat, and tears. Years and years and years of breaking every bone in his body only to lose everything that ever meant anything to him. In seconds. Everything. Gone. All that lost to Damian.

'Lost to a child who is undeserving.' He screams in his mind, and evil things crept back into his mind to agree. Tim growls to himself, shoving them down again, providing rationality to soothe himself back to whatever chaos remained. Alas, logic and reason crumble before emotion.

And so it screams again, 'he doesn't deserve it.'

And the voices hiss, 'he doesn't deserve it.'

Louder, 'He. Doesn't. Deserve. Shit.'

Until thought spilled into spoken word.

"The little brat deserves nothing."

Almost as soon as the taste of poison washed off his tongue, shame prickled his skin. Snake-like eyes opening at the back of his head. No, correction: he thought Batman would be ashamed of him. The words themselves were nothing of note, at least to Tim, but the fact that he pictured himself confronting Grayson -or, Bruce- like so? It unsettled him. Or perhaps it was an illusion of guilt.

'Fuck.'

The sudden thought of Bruce's name hit him like a swift punch, only piling on more pressure onto a cracked dam. 

'Not now. Not now. Later.' and Bruce's name quickly morphed into another. Grays-

A soft piano fluttered gently into his senses and Tim recognized it as an old joke Stephanie and he shared. His smile did not show, too weak to last longer than a moment. Guilt slowly approached only to be shredded apart by red hot rage that seized every string Tim offered. 'Boy Wonder' flashed on his phone's screen along with a face he so resented (at the moment at least), inviting more unnecessary distress. Tim was vaguely aware of the snarl etched on his face.

He wished he could just ignore it. Wished that this was all a nightmare that his cruel self decided to cook up as punishment. And his finger hovered, hesitating. But desperation leaped out under folds and folds of ruthless emotion, forcing him to answer a futile beckoning.

"Dick," He started, too irritated to wait for a proper greeting, "you're a real dick."

Jason saluted him in the future for mustering up so many curses in the span of one night, but it was quite obvious that the situation completely validated anything that slipped past his mouth at that moment.

"Like I've never heard that one," the other replied, but his tone was serious, his voice no longer brimming with the confidence Tim had grown accustomed to, nor could Tim detect the familiar gentleness.

Tim stood up. His legs had fallen asleep after sitting cross-legged for so long, but he was much too numb to feel anything beyond whatever ensued in his own train wreck of a brain. It was silent now, neither willing or knowing what, to speak to the other. He faintly regrets even making the comment. Tim managed to pace for another minute before gathering enough voice to resume,

"It's okay."

Tim could've won the award for telling the biggest lie to ever grace Dick's ears. Or anyone’s at that. Tim called it a confession, but something in the air yelled of denial. 

Yet, something in him wanted nothing more than to beat those two words into his head. 'It's okay'. It's not, really. But Tim wanted it to be the truth. Or rather, he needed it to be the truth. The fact is, neither is true.

Tim wanted to continue. Talk. Explain to him. Make a long ass speech about how he knew this would happen somehow. Ever since day one. That one day, he's going to lose himself and he knows. But Tim couldn't have possibly mustered up anything other than a sob, and so he kept it in. For pride or exhaustion, no one really knew.

"What?"

"It's okay," And Tim felt the need to strangle Dick for making him repeat himself. 

Dick had prepared for everything Tim could have said. Everything and anything but this. He was quite...’ positive’. So naive to think that a simple exchange might be enough. Or maybe it wasn't naivety, rather something so very different. But either way, the apologies he had so delicately coated in genuine sorrow halted in his throat, now useless and heavy.

"Tim, what? I don't unde-"

Click.

It took every inch of his willpower to hang up. Tim wanted, so _desperately_ wanted, to hear remorse drown Dick's voice. The satisfaction of hearing Dick beg for forgiveness for whatever reason sounded so, very pleasing to him. But Tim couldn't handle it. Couldn't handle seeing -or rather, hearing- one of the few true heroes in his life morph into his bane. To make Dick out to be nothing more than a villain in his already crime-ridden life. Tim didn't want that. Didn’t want hate to be the only thing to come to mind at the mention of Dick’s name. He'll come to understand Dick's decision. At least, that's what he chanted every time he began to drift into the merciful embrace of sleep.

It was very abrupt and instantaneous when Tim realized that he was getting quite exhausted. The troublesome weight of stress and grief finally catching on to his shoulders. He sat down, rampant sounds of thought churning in his head mixed in with the pound and throb of his headache. He felt weary and tired, caught in a crossfire of his own internal debate, fighting to get some sort of satisfying conclusion. But there is none. There is nothing to fix him. Because nothing mattered. There's just nothing and no one out there that can give him back what was lost that night.

The name that _really_ mattered. A true purpose and identity snatched away by invisible claws.

He was robbed of _Robin_.

Slowly - very, very slowly - his loud mind faded out into soft tears that scorched his face with defeat. And Tim felt himself break into two when they hit the concrete floor.

A dull rage stubborned deep in his mind, but Tim reluctantly dug it further down in return for temporary peace. He sat back down and laid his back on the cold, hard stone, lost in a fog of loss. For now, he's given up, for the first time in almost a decade, no less. He really did give up that night. And even though, somehow, he knew he would be able to fix himself sometime in the coming future, and even though he figured that he'd be able to feel pride for the time he bore the name of Robin one day, he could only mourn.

Lament as his world collapsed around him in silence, like a bird stripped of its feathers. 

Like a robin. 

_How sadly_, like a Robin.


End file.
